The borders of sexuality. Norwegian
conceptions of sexuality in family- and immigrationpolicy

What are the roles of conceptions of sexuality in the political
production of citizenship? In this article we consider how Norwegian
sexual politics, in a broad sense, contributes to integration and
exclusion concerning citizenship. Based on the Government-initiated
course for first-time parents, Living together, and policy documents
concerning pro forma marriage and asylum applications on the grounds
of homosexuality, we discuss how gendered and racialised conceptions
of sexuality come into play in constructions of normative «Norwegian
sexuality», as well as its «Others». Finally, we argue that certain
understandings of sexuality are employed in the construction of
Norwegian nationality in these processes of inclusion and exclusion. .

A full dozen or two-child families?
Immigrant birth rates in Norwegian public discourse

Todays Norwegian women give birth to an average of 1.9 children.
Immigrants have slightly different reproductive patterns from the
general population. This article examines how these differences
are addressed in Norwegian public life. I argue that it is possible
to identify constructions of a «Norwegian» community, and potential
exclusion, ranking and hierarchization in relation to it in public
discourses on reproduction.

This article engages with social and cultural constructions of
Swedishness from a perspective that highlights the intersections
of gender, sexuality and race. It argues that racialised discourses
around heterosexuality constitute an important aspect of the notion
of the nation and its boundaries of belonging. Empirically, the
study is based on interviews with 29 young women of Latin American
descent, born and/or raised in Sweden. By considering ideas of nation,
race, gender and sexuality as being intertwined, complex processes
of inclusion and exclusion are illuminated. While the young women
experience exclusion from the Swedish narrative of whiteness, they
define themselves as Swedes by culturally associating with sexual
liberty: a central part of the idea of «a Swedish sexuality». In
this way, they simultaneously distance themselves from virginity
or abstinence, a practice associated with young Muslim women, and
in a broader sense, with the notion of «immigrants». Since non-white
women are not defined as symbolic to the nation in the same way
as white women are, however, it is argued that they, as young Latin women,
do not embody Swedishness and the kind of respectability inherited
in the construction of whiteness. Thus, by exploring national identity
through interconnected practices, the article argues that the often
discussed and criticized dichotomy of «Swedes» and «immigrants»
appears even more complex when gender and sexuality are introduced
into the analysis.

Swedishness on the fringes  a
concept of fellowship

The subject of the article is the «Swedish girl» as a representation
of sexual availability and lack of respectability. It uses a lengthy
ethnographic fieldwork in a multi-ethnic suburb of Stockholm to
pose questions about local Swedishness, imagined communities and
white respectability.Several researchers have highlighted how «Swedishness»
tends to be a normality that is so uncontested that it cannot even
be seen. Likewise, it is often pointed out that it is the majority societys
self-perception that is associated with the normal and the ideal.
This article suggests that there are also contexts that express
something else: where the dominance relations are not very clear.
In some cases the «Swedish» can be just as remarkable, visible and
deviating as the «non-Swedish».

A number of examples underline the general ambivalence that
surrounds «local talk» about both sexuality and Swedishness. On
the one hand, sexuality is a field where indicating distance from
the emancipated or loose-living «Swedish girl» can be strategic.
On the other hand, an active sexuality can also be an indication
that you are emancipated, modern and equal. What complicates the
situation of Swedish young people even further is that Swedes also
symbolise the suburbs «alien other». Or, to use Zygmunt Baumans
formulation, that it is possible to regard them as «strangers within».